Am I approaching this the right way?

[Chives74]

At the park yesterday with Dd (8), she has asd and can sometimes come across as over enthusiastic/excited but otherwise very sociable and fun. Group of three girls roughly similar age to dd playing on roundabout, as soon as dd got on the roundabout one of them made a comment, I didn’t hear it but the mum told her to ‘play nicely’, they then ran off to play on something else. A few minutes later dd got on another piece of equipment that they were on and one of the girls said ‘oh no, lets go on something else’ and again moved immediately. This happened about four times within the 20 minutes and dd was very upset, I had to tell her not to go on the same equipment if she was going to be upset when they moved and to ignore the fact that they were not friendly. I understand that children can behave like this at times but this was quite obviously mean. I am telling saying the right things to dd or would you say something different?

Sorry *Am I telling her the right things

Yes I think this is good advice, it’s a shame when kids don’t want to play with your DD, I would encourage my DD not to be rude and to include your DD but not everyone will and she has to learn to respect that and not get too bothered about it.

It’s a tricky one as your DD (parent of ASD child here) is operating at a different age for social play. Add in the difficulty of recognising social cues and it’s a minefield.

Younger kids are more likely to let someone join the play. By 8 the group is doing a thing and entry is not a given. They aren’t doing side by side play and have a bigger perimeter.

Basically it’s crap but normal. The other kids shouldn’t have to include someone they don’t know to be nice as it’s putting all the onus on them. Would it be nice? Of course.

The negotiation of getting to join in gets way more complex about that age.

Good book - the unwritten rules of friendship. Also bullies bigmouths and so called friends, and Queen bees and wannabes.

I think I did a lot of it would be nice but you don’t always want people to join in your stuff to push the two sides argument and make it less personal. Sorry OP it is hard on the heart.

Lots of social talk explaining the unseen and both sides of the story really pays off in the long run though.

When kids are young one sometimes assumes that they will all just get on. But of course they have their own likes and dislikes and friendship groups. Trying to force it will just backfire as kids struggle to hide their feelings.
My heart broke when my very outgoing son, at about 7, joined a few slightly older kids in a playground. Usually when he does this they all end up running around together. This time one stopped, looked at him and said 'who said you could play with us'. My son just looked down and later asked me why they were mean to him. All my own playground experiences (I was a shy child) of being left out came rushing back. I told him that there were friendly people and some not so friendly people and not to take it to heart as they didn't know him. I also said that if they weren't nice he wouldn't want to be their friend anyway.
When he was 14 he realised he only had a very few close friends and the rest were just friends when they were doing something together (like rugby - situational friends). He was crushed to realise he wasn't as popular as he thought. I explained that's the way it is, true friends are with you no matter what, but casual friends are important too, and it's good to understand the difference.

Thanks everyone, I really wasn’t sure if I was doing/saying the right things but looks like it was probably a good way of approaching it.

CatalogueUniverse, thanks for recommending the books and I have noticed the age thing as you said. She finds it much easier to keep up with younger children and they tend to be more welcoming/less judgemental.

Pipandmum, thank you for sharing your experience